TEALS. 177 



To these instances of tender attachment, many 

 more of which might be daily discovered by those 

 that are studious of nature, may be opposed that 

 rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the 

 oropyv, which induces some females of the brute 

 creation to devour their young, because their 

 owners have handled them too freely, or removed 

 them from place to place ! Swine, anoTsometimes 

 the more gentle race of dogs and cats, are guilty 

 of this horrid and preposterous murder. When I 

 hear now and then of an abandoned mother that 

 destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed ; 

 since reason perverted, and the bad passions let 

 loose, are capable of any enormity ; but why the 

 parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one 

 most uniform tenor, should sometimes be so ex- 

 travagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers 

 than mvself to determine. 



XV. 



SOME young men went down lately to a pond on 

 the verge of Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers or 

 young wild ducks, many of which they caught, 

 and, among 'the rest, some very minute yet well- 

 fledged wild fowls alive, which upon examination 

 I found to be teals. I did not know till then that 

 teals ever bred in the south of England, and was 

 much pleased with the discovery : this I look upon 

 as a great stroke in natural history. 



We have had, ever since I can remember, a 

 pair of white owls that constantly breed under 

 the eaves of this church. As I have paid good 



were caught in this small space, and kept until morning, and 

 at least as many must have escaped. They appear to be on 

 terms of perfect amity with the swifts. W. J. 



N 



